vanishes, and my right hand might never recover from the crushing he gives it. His grip isn’t the only thing that’s tight, either. Although his expression never truly changes, I can see how his shoulders have clenched and his eyes have narrowed. I’m going to hear all about how nosy my parents are later. “Um, not sure.”
Actually, I’m fairly sure that this conversation is the most thought Jared’s ever given to college at all. When we’re not playing and writing songs, I’m often helping him with his schoolwork even though he’s a year ahead of me. It’s not that he isn’t smart, but he doesn’t have much interest in it.
“Well, what do you want to do?” my dad asks. “Surely, you have some thoughts. A doctor? A lawyer? Lord help you, not a teacher or an accountant, I hope.”
“I want to be a musician, I guess.”
“Oh, yes,” my mom says. “You’re teaching Claire guitar, aren’t you. I do love Andrés Segovia. We should hear you play sometime.”
His wince returns in full force. “Sure, I guess. But I won’t sound anything like Segovia. He plays a classic guitar, and I have a steel-string because I mostly play rock.”
Given the horror that sweeps across my parents’ faces, this must translate as: my boyfriend aspires to be poor, do drugs and drop out of school.
“Well, that explains your hair,” says my dad.
It’s the beginning of the end.
From that day forward, Jared becomes ever the more obstinate about avoiding my parents. And for their part, my parents become ever the more argumentative whenever Jared’s name comes up. He’s a blemish on the Claire sculpture they’ve tried so hard to mold.
But though my parents have done their best, personality is only so malleable. They started with the piano and tennis lessons in elementary school because, according to my mom and her mother before her, all girls should know how to play both. While those were ongoing, I was made to appreciate art everywhere from the Met to the Louvre, taken on shopping expeditions from Fifth Avenue to Florence, and the gaps in my pricey private-school education were filled in with horseback riding and sailing lessons.
And although I can’t deny some of my mom rubbed off on me—I stuck with the piano long after April quit and I pretty much adore all things Italy—she didn’t create a little version of herself. I prefer funky boutiques to high-end designers. I’d rather watch a game at Yankee Stadium than a match at Wimbledon. And I want a Strat and a set of amps for my sixteenth birthday instead of the new car my parents are offering.
Worse: I love Jared even if they don’t. As a result, I begin the downward slide from simply being the misfit child to the bad daughter. It’s a process that’s been fifteen years in the making.
The harder they try to make me into their version of Claire, the harder I fight back. If I’m not hanging out with Jared, I’m hanging out with Kristen. Anything to get away from the tension at the Winslow house. My parents’ tendency to favor April, which they staunchly deny, becomes even greater. It’s as if we communicate so infrequently and irregularly, that sometimes they forget I exist. Or maybe we start speaking in two totally different languages.
Take, for example, my cousin Alison’s wedding. Alison is my mom’s brother’s daughter. She’s ten years older than me, and I see her maybe once a year. Our paths cross so infrequently that I can’t even give an opinion of her. But that’s not about to stop Alison from using me and April as decorations in her wedding party.
Alison is determined to have the most badass (read: expensive) wedding known to humanity. Something so ostentatious that members of Greenpeace should probably be picketing the event for its gratuitous use of natural resources. As such, she requested April and I be junior bridesmaids. What a junior bridesmaid does besides wear an ugly dress, uncomfortable shoes and a fake smile is not something anyone can explain to me, but that’s beside the point. April is excited about dressing like a princess, and my mom is excited for the high-society photo op.
Alison planned a shopping date for bridesmaid dresses with my mom, and in typical Winslow family fashion, my mother conveyed this information to April, but not to me.
“Jared’s picking me up at four,” I say as I come down the stairs on Saturday and help myself to the platter of bacon.
“Picking you up for what?” my mother asks. She looks healthy. True, she lost a bit of weight on the last round of chemo, and she hasn’t regained it. But since her motto is “never too rich or too thin,” she’s far from bemoaning the fact that she once again fits into her size two jeans.
“For the concert.” Technically, it’s called the Music or Lose It Tour, and it’s headlined by one of Jared’s and my favorite bands, but there’s no way I’m bothering to explain that to my parents. “Remember? He got us the tickets for Valentine’s Day. It’s up in Hartford tonight.”
This is when my mother informs me of the dress shopping plans and tells me that trumps any silly concert.
I force down the bite of bacon. “When did you decide this?”
“A few weeks ago. We had to pick a day that didn’t interfere with April’s practice schedule.”
“Well, what about my schedule? You didn’t think to ask me?”
“I’m sure we did. You didn’t mention any prior commitments.”
“Um, hello? Concert? If you’d asked, I would definitely have mentioned it!”
My father puts down his newspaper. “Claire, this is your cousin’s wedding. That takes a bit more priority than your boyfriend.”
A wedding for a cousin I see once a year and who spelled my name Clare in the email telling—excuse me, asking—me to be a junior bridesmaid. How is that more important than my boyfriend of seven months? You know, the guy I see every freaking day?
I attempt to be rational. “That’s not the point. You didn’t ask me, and Jared spent a couple hundred dollars to get these tickets.”
“And your aunt and uncle are spending a hundred thousand dollars on your cousin’s wedding. Your dress isn’t even included in that because we’re paying for it.”
That’s supposed to make me feel better? Jared had to take a part-time job to pay for these tickets. My Uncle Doug might be insane, but I’m guessing he didn’t work extra hours at the office to afford the wedding. Telling my parents about Jared’s job, though, is a bad idea. They’ll only turn up their noses even further.
The smell of the eggs on my plate is screwing with my stomach. “I’m not blowing off the whole wedding. I just can’t go dress shopping today.”
“You’re going.”
“I’m not.”
Across from me, April smiles, perfectly smug, and stuffs another forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth.
“Yes, you are,” says my dad. “You don’t have my permission to go to this concert. The discussion is over.”
“You gave me permission last month.” I should have gotten it in writing.
“I gave permission to let a seventeen-year-old boy drive my
